Eurada News nº387 - April 2019

20th Anniversary of ADR Nord-Est

On the 16th April, the Nord-Est Regional Development Agency celebrated the 20th anniversary of its foundation. The balance of the 20 years of activity has proven to be encouraging: support for the implementation of more than 2300 projects by regional actors, worth € 1.8 billion; 97 international projects or technical assistance where North-East RDA was a beneficiary, using over € 52 million.

The Regional Development Agency Nord-Est Romania is one of the leading members of EURADA. ADR Nord-Est is the perfect example of leading role in regional economy development. It is a model that should be followed by others development agencies because it combines management of structural funds with services provision and mobilisation of local stakeholders. The agency is the intermediate body of the EU regional funds. In addition the agency has a strong proactive approach, providing a structured portfolio of innovation support services to the main economic actors of its region.

From EURADA’s point of view it is particularly relevant the activities on internationalisation carried out by ADR Nord-Est. The staff of the agency is present within the main EU discussion forums gathering specific projects for its region. In particular, they are a model about how to establish a good office in Brussels for the relation with the EU institutions and other regions. The region has establish an agreement with the North Netherlands Provinces that it is a model for many other regions about how to internationalise the smart specialisation strategies.

ADR Nord-Est is part of the Board of Directors of EURADA since 2017. The agency establishes the priorities of work in the European Association of Development Agencies in close cooperation with the other 24 development agencies that are members of the Board. This active role allows ADR Nord-Est to establish in the common European shared agenda its local priorities.

The Rubik Hub initiative of ADR Nord-Est won one of the EURADA Awards. These awards recognise at the European level initiatives with high level impact implemented by public development agencies to support the economic growth and competitiveness of companies in their territories. The jurors valued the innovative characteristics, the impact and the transferability from Rubik Hub. This business incubator is located in a normal city; not in the regions’ biggest city, neither in the heart of an economic zone, but exactly where people needed it the most: in a post-industrial, middle city with no campus. This should be replicated all over Europe if we want entrepreneurship and start-ups to go beyond London, Amsterdam, Stockholm and Berlin. The ceremony of the III edition of the Awards took place in IGRETEC headquarters in Charleroi on 21st June 2018 with the presence of Mr Slawomir Tokarski, Director of Innovation and Advanced Manufacturing of the European Commission and it was chaired by Ms Roberta Dall’Olio from ERVET as President of Eurada.

ADR Nord-Est has a very active role outside Europe. ADR Nord-Est has established a collaboration framework with Valle de Aburrá (Colombia) to identify opportunities for the main industries and research centers from the first development region of Romania. Both regions are analysing complementarities in their smart specialisations and bringing stakeholders to establish long term cooperation for the mutual benefit of Colombia and Romania.

The agency was part of the European Delegation of Development Agencies that took part in the annual event organised by the International Economic Development Council (IEDC). This entity gathers all the economic developers from the United States. It has more than 5.000 members. The director of ADR Nord-Est (Mr Vasile Asandei), and other expert from the agency took part in the debates representing the agencies of Europe. As a consequence it has been signed a memorandum of understanding on March 2019 that will give closer relationships for common projects between the agencies in Europe and USA.

To celebrate the XX anniversary, ADR Nord-East have organised an event on April 16th that gathered over 200 collaborators from the local public administration, academia and the private environment. They had the opportunity to learn from the achievements of the 20 years of activity: ADR Nord-East has supported the implementation of more than 2300 projects by regional actors, worth € 1.8 billion; 97 international projects or technical assistance where ADR North-Est RDA was a beneficiary, using over € 52 million.

More than 250 local and private actors have been beneficiaries of training and exchange activities, 650 SMEs have benefited from internationalization and innovation advice, 900 young entrepreneurs have been trained and 135 start-ups have been created, 10 Local Action Plans were developed for Sustainable Energy and Climate while 6 Local Action Plans were activated for the protection of cultural heritage.

Under the current Regional Operational Program, 1.328 applications have been submitted for the EUR 1,089 million allocated to the Northeast Region of the ROP 2014-2020, of which 505 projects amounting to 753 million Euro have already been contracted, which will be transposed investment in urban development, energy efficiency in public buildings, road transport infrastructure, infrastructure, medical, social and educational, valorisation of tourism potential and cultural heritage, development of SME competitiveness, innovation and technological transfer.

The beneficial effects of these concrete results on the development of the North-East Region have been recognized by all those working with North-East RDA in this long way of regional development: the North East Regional Development Council, the European Commission, represented by a delegation of DG Regio headed by Mr. Carsten Rasmussen, Head of the Unit for Romania, rectors of the universities in the region, grant beneficiaries, start-ups or strong SMEs. During the event, Mr Vasile Asandei said as Director of North- Est Regional Director General.”These results are great. Our dedication is largely due to our partners, beneficiaries and collaborators, who showed professionalism, inspirational inspiration and a permanent impetus for progress”.